|
On a summer night in 1995, a sheriff’s deputy was shot and killed in a hotel parking lot in Birmingham, Alabama. When investigators arrived at the scene, they found no eyewitnesses and almost no evidence to point them to the shooter.
Ultimately, a man named Toforest Johnson was convicted and sentenced to death in the killing, even though he had alibi witnesses who said he was with friends at a nightclub miles away. His conviction rested instead on the testimony of an “earwitness” – a woman who claimed to have overheard Johnson confessing to the crime.
In 2019, journalist Beth Shelburne began investigating the case. This week, in partnership with Lava for Good and the Earwitness podcast, we tell the story of Johnson’s case, from the night of the murder to calls today for a new trial.
|
